Dark Night Hidden

by Alys Clare

  Josse, trotting off along the road and bound for New Winnowlands, put a hand inside his tunic to check that the linen-wrapped package was secure. He had been thinking about a hiding place for it back at his manor house and believed he had come up with a good one.

  I did not tell her about the manuscript, he thought as he rode. I almost did, but somehow I stopped myself. She has been through quite a lot just recently, and every one of us has our limits.

  He pictured her, the wide grey eyes troubled. Then he saw her weeping, saw himself go to stand by her side and place on her shoulder an awkward hand that wanted so much to comfort and did not know how.

  Helewise.

  Deliberately turning his thoughts away from her, he spurred Horace and cantered for home.

  Postscript

  March 1193

  Meggie was getting used to the people who now looked after her. They were kind and tended her with loving hands. They made sure that she was fed when she was hungry and bathed when she was dirty. They found somewhere warm and safe for her to sleep. When she cried – which, for the first time in her short life, she did quite often – someone always came to pick her up, give her a cuddle and croon a soft little song until her tears ceased.

  But it was not the same. It was not right, because neither the very old woman with the long silver hair, nor the slightly younger one with the brown, wrinkly face, nor the plump young girl whose breasts were swollen with milk was the person for whom Meggie hungered.

  None of them was her mother.

  She was too young to understand, far too young to ask questions. At four and a half months old, all she could do was frown because her sorrow hurt her, without knowing why it had come.

  Lora was looking after Joanna’s baby, with the help of one of the young mothers of the forest people. Sometimes Meggie would accept milk from the young mother’s breast – she was still feeding her own five-month-old son – and sometimes she would screw her small face up into an expression of grief and turn away.

  ‘I don’t smell like Joanna,’ the young woman remarked sadly one evening after she had finally admitted defeat.

  ‘Milk’s milk,’ Lora said tersely; Meggie’s quiet, heartbroken crying was affecting her badly. Glancing at the baby girl, she said, ‘The child must feed. Try once more, Silva.’

  But Silva shook her head. ‘No, Lora. I want her to take in some nourishment as much as you do, but she’s just not interested at the moment.’ She picked up her own child and put him to her breast, whereupon he instantly began to suckle eagerly and efficiently, clutching at the smooth curve of his mother’s warm flesh with one small hand.

  ‘Hmm.’ Lora was staring at the pair of them with an absent expression. Then, as if suddenly coming to a decision, she got quickly and gracefully to her feet and said, ‘I’m going to speak with the Domina, if she will receive me. I’ll try to be back afore nightfall.’

  ‘Very well,’ Silva replied, eyes on her son.

  Lora picked up Meggie, wrapped her warmly – the March evening was chilly, clear skies suggesting the coming of a frost after a sunny day – and headed off along one of the faint tracks that led out of the clearing where the forest people had set up a temporary camp.

  After walking for some time she reached the dell where the Domina was wont to set up her own private shelter, a little apart from her people, whenever she visited this part of the Great Wealden Forest. Smoke was rising from a fire that burned within a circular hearth of stones. From within the shelter Lora could hear faint sounds of chanting. Knowing better than to interrupt, she sat down on a fallen log, checked that Meggie was warm enough, and waited.

  It was not long before the chanting ceased. From within the shelter, the tall, grey-clad figure of the Domina emerged.

  Standing up, Lora said reverently, ‘I am sorry if I disturbed you, Domina.’

  ‘You did not.’ The older woman sighed. ‘I was aware of your presence, yours and the child’s, and my own thoughts interrupted my meditation.’ Approaching Lora, she held out her hands for the baby and Lora put Meggie into her arms. ‘Now then, my pretty maid,’ she said in a gentle voice, ‘what is it that ails you? Why will you not accept milk from one other than your own mother when it is given with love?’

  Meggie stared up at her, the delicate, dark eyebrows drawing together into a frown. She made a little mewing sound and the Domina lightly touched her cheek with a long finger.

  Still staring intently into the baby’s round eyes, the Domina said, her voice now taking on a more compelling tone, ‘Return to Silva, little one. Satisfy your hunger on that which she so freely offers you and then sleep. Do not dream; do not see bad visions of what must now be put behind you. Feed, and then sleep. Sleep soundly, sleep long.’

  So powerful was the Domina’s magic that Lora found herself yawning hugely. With a grin, she said, ‘I am grateful to you, Domina. I’d better take the child back now afore I fall asleep myself.’

  ‘You will find that the babe will suckle now,’ the Domina replied. ‘And tomorrow . . .’

  She did not finish her sentence and Lora knew she must contain her impatience over what the older woman intended to do. It was not done to ask questions of one so senior. With a deep bow, she took Meggie back, wrapped her in her furs and turned around to set her feet on the homeward track.

  The Domina sat alone outside her shelter long into the night. The temperature fell drastically as the hours went by and a sharp frost turned the ground around her to a shade of silver that almost matched her long hair. The waxing Moon, already past the half, shone down on her, the bright light paling the stars of the Milky Way that stretched high above in an arc as if someone had hurled them from an outstretched hand.

  She did not feel the cold. Her mind had left her body and the current state of her limbs and her torso was of no great importance to her. She would return to herself when she was ready, and then she would go inside her shelter to the hearth and to the drink she had set ready earlier. Once she had stirred the fire into life and added fuel, drunk her drink and wrapped herself up in her great bearskin, she would soon be as warm as she could wish.

  Her deep-set eyes stared sightlessly out into the darkness. She was looking at a very different scene, one whose stage was a circle of standing stones beneath a February moon. And she was seeing herself, standing facing a young woman who wore around her neck a talisman of such power that its presence had caused the Domina’s strong, indomitable heart to miss a beat.

  Joanna had not realised the significance of either the gift or the giver. She had told the Domina that the claw had been given to her by a man of the tribe who had slipped away from the Yule celebrations that she had not been able to attend. When the Domina had informed her that the tribe’s Yule festivities had been held too far away to make such a visit feasible, Joanna had clearly been greatly surprised. But, young and ignorant though she was in the life and the ways of the tribe, she had managed not to ask the question that burned in her eyes. She had never been told who her visitor was. Nor, indeed, what his visit implied.

  And at Imbolc he had summond her. Now, turning her mind back to that night, the Domina saw them together, the young woman and the man bear, as she had watched them before. She did not need to spy on them to know what they were doing; the act that had taken place between them had been predestined from the moment that he gave Joanna the claw.

  He had returned to his people after his long, long absence. He had disappeared ages ago, in a time that nobody living now recalled and that was only remembered – and given great reverence – in the songs of the tribe. Oh yes, he had come to them before, lived among them, walked and breathed as a normal man for most of those far-off and magical days. But they had all known, all of his people, just what was special about him. Some of them thought they had even seen him shift from man to bear and back again, only afterwards they could never be quite sure because of the speed with which he did it. Bears there certainly had been back then, living alongside men. Who could in tr
uth say what had happened?

  Somebody could. Somebody had known without a doubt, for he had appeared to her as he had done to Joanna. Had lain with her, many times, had impregnated her, had watched her carry and then bear the child Ursus, who grew up to wear the blazon of the Scarlet Bear upon his shield. Who had himself given rise to a great warrior line whose deeds were still sung of by the bards and who would for ever retain a place in the hearts of their people.

  Deep in her trance, the Domina turned her mind to seek out the bear man. After a long time, she felt that her consciousness brushed his. Seeing his bright eyes behind her closed lids, she asked him what she must ask. And, in time, she felt that she heard his reply.

  In the morning the Domina rose early and set out on the track that led to the temporary camp. Approaching the shelter where Lora was tending Meggie, she stood outside, not speaking. Her very presence was a summons; Lora quickly got to her feet and bowed.

  ‘It is time,’ the Domina said. She held out her arms and Lora bent to pick up the child, wrapped in her furs. Without another word, the Domina turned and left the clearing. Lora, watching her go, found that she was praying. Please, Great Mother, make it all right. Please look after Meggie . . .

  Then, with a faint shrug, she ducked and went back inside the shelter to empty the bowl of warm water with which she had been washing the baby when the Domina came for her. It is up to you now, Mother, she thought. I have done all that I can.

  The Domina carried Meggie for many hours. When the child was hungry, the Domina drew from inside her robe a silver flask containing a mixture of honey, water and certain herbs that she had prepared herself. Dipping her finger in the flask’s wide neck, she offered the liquid to the baby. Each time Meggie took it eagerly. Each time it satisfied both her hunger and her thirst.

  A little after noon they came to a place where an outcrop of sandstone soared up among the trees. Viewed from a distance, it had the appearance of the top of a huge head standing out among the branches. To one side of the outcrop, some ancient, natural force had carved out a cave. It extended some ten or fifteen paces back inside the Earth and its sandy floor was dry.

  The Domina found her way to the cave entrance with ease. It was she who had discovered it, many years ago. She knew it was a place of strong Earth power and she had tucked away a memory of it in her mind, knowing that, one day, it would be useful.

  She stood in the shelter of a large boulder that stood beside the cave entrance. Then, absolutely silent in her movements, she peered around the boulder. A hearth had been set out a couple of paces inside the cave mouth. The fire was low now, although there was a neat stack of small logs nearby. Beside the fire was the skinned body of a hare, wrapped in a variety of leaves, all of which the Domina knew to be edible and reasonably nutritious.

  Good. The occupant of the cave certainly seemed to have remembered how to live out in the wildwood.

  The Domina went on into the cave. Bedding was rolled up and tucked away on a rock shelf where it would stay dry in case of a sudden shower that blew rain inside the cave. Another lesson well learned.

  Meggie stirred in her arms. The Domina debated whether to give the child some more of the mixture in the silver flask but decided against it.

  She found a boulder close to the hearth and sat down to wait.

  It was the baby who noticed first. The Domina, gazing down at Meggie’s wide eyes, felt the child’s sudden unnatural stillness and she knew. Old as she was, she who had seen human beings interact with the Earth and with each other for more decades than she could now recall, still there was room in her heart for wonder. Great Mother, she prayed silently, what a gift you have bestowed upon us in the bond that ties mother to child, child to mother.

  Because someone else also now knew who awaited her by the hearth. Breaking into a run, dropping her carefully gathered herbs from hands that suddenly didn’t care, Joanna came racing into the clearing, around the great outcrop and into the cave. Ignoring the Domina, eyes only for her baby, she cried, ‘Meggie! Oh, my sweetest child!’ and the ache and longing in her voice brought tears to the Domina’s old eyes.

  She gave mother and baby a few moments simply to rejoice in each other. Then, observing the wet stains that were spreading over the front of Joanna’s robe, she said, ‘You have kept yourself in milk?’

  ‘Yes,’ Joanna replied.

  Good, the Domina thought again. For all that she had no idea what was to come, she kept hope alive. She kept her milk flowing, in case her child should be returned to her.

  ‘Then I think,’ said the Domina, ‘that you had better feed her.’

  Looking up at her briefly, with a quick smile Joanna opened her robe and did so.

  Joanna had been living in the cave for a month. The Domina had sought her out in the forest and taken her there.

  She had not known why this terrible thing was happening to her. She had been ordered to pack a small amount of essential kit – warm sleeping furs, her knife, her flint, a light drinking vessel – and told that she must leave Meggie behind. Her heart almost breaking, Joanna had obeyed. The Domina’s dark eyes had compelled her, and there was no question of rebellion.

  As they had walked the long miles to the cave, Joanna had a dreadful thought. When she had found Utta, when, later, she had done what she had to do to save not only Utta but herself and Meggie too, she had believed that act to be what the Domina had prophesied: What you have done before you can do again. Now she quaked with fear that it was not what the Domina had meant at all.

  That what she had referred to was the giving up of a child.

  Joanna had asked Josse to find a household for her son Ninian and, having let the boy go, she had known she would never see him again other than in the black depths of her scrying stone.

  Was this, then, the second test that she must pass? The abandoning of her second child, her daughter, her Meggie, her beloved?

  Not daring to ask, she had followed the Domina along the forest paths with silent tears coursing down her face.

  When they reached the cave that was to be Joanna’s dwelling place, the Domina said, ‘You have taken life. Two souls have you sent into the abyss. Concerning the first, I know all that I need to know, for you have already told me and I have seen it. I know that you told me no lies. Concerning the second, I wish you now to explain.’

  So, sitting on the sandy floor of a cave, lost so far within the forest that she knew she would never find her way out, Joanna told her tale. She told of how she had found the woman, Utta, and taken her back to the hut in the forest to look after her. How she had discovered the sickening brand on the woman’s forehead and known that H meant heretic. How she had taken fright and removed Utta, Meggie and herself to the safety of the refuge in the yew tree.

  How the Black Man had come looking for his prey. Looking for Utta. How Meggie’s soft little sound of love had alerted him and how he had advanced towards the foot of the tree. Then Joanna forgot the Domina beside her, forgot that she was telling a tale, for she saw him begin to climb, saw every detail unfold before her eyes as if it were happening all over again . . .

  Down in the lower branches of the yew tree, the Black Man, suspended from the rope that he had slung and tied, raised his head and saw her. Instantly he looked surprised; he said, panting with the exertion of the climb, ‘What in the devil’s name are you?’

  I have no brand, Joanna thought, and he is expecting to find a heretic woman. She was just wondering whether she might after all be able to convince him that she was no concern of his, no threat to him, and persuade him to go away and leave her alone when he laughed his ghastly laugh again.

  ‘You’re one of those filthy, pagan forest dwellers, I’ll be bound,’ he said, speaking as if he had no idea that she understood, that she spoke his language or, indeed, any language at all. ‘One of that vermin crowd who need to be hunted down like treacherous plague rats and burned on the heretics’ pyre.’ His pale face spread into a grin that was more like a rictus.
‘It’s good work for the Lord that I’ll do this night, a forest bitch and her pup both thrown to the flames.’

  Then, reaching out with his right arm and getting a good grasp on the next handhold, he gave an upwards thrust from his legs, clasped around the rope, and got his torso across the branch.

  He turned up his face and stared triumphantly at Joanna.

  ‘Thought you could get away, didn’t you?’ he murmured softly. ‘Thought you were too clever for a man of God? Well, let me tell you, my lass, I—’

  But whatever he was about to say would never be known. Joanna drew back her left foot and, with all the strength in her leg muscles of more than a year living the tough life of the wildwood, she swung it forwards again and kicked the Black Man on the point of his chin.

  His head rocketed backwards, the momentum of Joanna’s kick sweeping him off the branch and on, on, over in a back flip. He was more than halfway through the revolution when, face first, he hit the ground.

  Even from upon the branch, Joanna heard the crack as his neck broke.

  ‘Then,’ she said, recalling the Domina beside her, ‘I slipped down from the tree and went to see. He was dead. So I called up to Utta that it was safe to come down and she climbed out of the tree as well. We knew we must get rid of the body and I wanted to carry it a good distance away and bury it. But Utta said that was not right, because it would mean he died without any prayers being said for his soul. She was a good woman for, although he was her sworn enemy and would have slain her without mercy, she still had a thought for his immortal soul. So I put Meggie in her sling and Utta and I carried the Black Man between us up to the road that runs up from Castle Hill towards Hawkenlye Abbey. We left him there on the track. We knew someone would pass by before too long and that they would report the body, probably to the nuns of the Abbey. Then he would be almost certain to be buried according to the rites of his own religion.’

  ‘You knew, then, who this man was?’ the Domina asked.

  ‘No. Merely that he was a man of the Church, for he had implied as much in his own words.’